(a) The systematic purging program provided in this section
shall begin no earlier than October 1 of each odd-numbered year and
shall be completed no later than February 1 of the following year.
The clerk of the county commission shall transmit or mail to the
Secretary of State a certification that the systematic purging
program has been completed and all voters identified as no longer
eligible to vote have been canceled in the statewide voter
registration database in accordance with the law no later than
February 15 in the year in which the purging program is completed.

(b) The Secretary of State shall provide for the comparison of
data records of all counties. The Secretary of State shall, based
on the comparison, prepare a list for each county which shall
include the voter registration record for each voter shown on that
county's list who appears to have registered or to have updated a
voter registration in another county at a subsequent date. The
resulting lists shall be returned to the appropriate county and the
clerk of the county commission shall proceed with the confirmation
procedure for those voters as prescribed in section twenty-six of
this article.

(c) The Secretary of State may provide for the comparison of
data records of counties with the data records of the Division of Motor Vehicles, the registrar of vital statistics and with the data
records of any other state agency which maintains records of
residents of the state, if the procedure is practical and the
agency agrees to participate. Any resulting information regarding
potentially ineligible voters shall be returned to the appropriate
county and the clerk of the county commission shall proceed with
the confirmation procedure as prescribed in section twenty-six of
this article.

(d) The records of all voters not identified pursuant to the
procedures set forth in subsections (b) and (c) of this section
shall be combined for comparison with United States Postal Service
change of address information, as described in section 8(c)(A) of
the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (42 U. S. C.§1973gg, et
seq.). The Secretary of State shall contract with an authorized
vendor of the United States Postal Service to perform the
comparison. The cost of the change of address comparison procedure
shall be paid for from the combined voter registration and
licensing fund established in section twelve of this article and
the cost of the confirmation notices, labels and postage shall be
paid for by the counties.

(e) The Secretary of State shall return to each county the
identified matches of the county voter registration records and the
postal service change of address records.

(1) When the change of address information indicates the voter
has moved to a new address within the county, the clerk of the county commission shall enter the new address on the voter record
and assign the proper precinct.

(2) The clerk of the county commission shall then mail to each
voter who appears to have moved from the residence address shown on
the registration records a confirmation notice pursuant to section
twenty-six of this article and of section 8(d)(2) of the National
Voter Registration Act of 1993 (42 U. S. C.§1973gg, et seq.). The
notice shall be mailed, no later than December 31, to the new
address provided by the postal service records or to the old
address if a new address is not available.

(f) The clerk of the county commission shall indicate in the
statewide voter registration database the name and address of each
voter to whom a confirmation notice was mailed and the date on
which the notice was mailed.

(g) Upon receipt of any response or returned mailing sent
pursuant to the provisions of subsection (e) of this section, the
clerk shall immediately enter the date and type of response
received in the statewide voter registration database and shall
then proceed in accordance with the provisions of section twenty-
six of this article.

(h) For purposes of complying with the record keeping and
public inspection requirements of the National Voter Registration
Act of 1993 (42 U. S. C.§1973gg, et seq.), and with the provisions
of section twenty-seven of this article, the public inspection
lists shall be maintained either in printed form kept in a binder prepared for such purpose and available for public inspection
during regular business hours at the office of the clerk of the
county commission or in read-only data format available for public
inspection on computer terminals set aside and available for
regular use by the general public. Information concerning whether
or not each person has responded to the notice shall be entered
into the statewide voter registration database upon receipt and
shall be available for public inspection as of the date the
information is received.

(i) Any voter to whom a confirmation notice was mailed
pursuant to the provisions of subsection (e) of this section who
fails to respond to the notice or to update his or her voter
registration address by February 1 immediately following the
completion of the program, shall be designated inactive in the
statewide voter registration database. Any voter designated
inactive shall be required to affirm his or her current residence
address, on a form prescribed by the Secretary of State, upon
appearing at the polls to vote.

(j) In addition to the preceding purging procedures, all
counties using the change of address information of the United
States Postal Service shall also, once each four years during the
period established for systematic purging in the year following a
presidential election year, conduct the same procedure by mailing
a confirmation notice to those persons not identified as
potentially ineligible through the change of address comparison procedure but who have not updated their voter registration records
and have not voted in any election during the preceding four
calendar years. The purpose of this additional systematic
confirmation procedure shall be to identify those voters who may
have moved without filing a forwarding address, moved with a
forwarding address under another name, died in a another county or
state so that the certificate of death was not returned to the
clerk of the county commission, or who otherwise have become
ineligible.
Note: WV Code updated with legislation passed through the 2016 Regular Session
The West Virginia Code Online is an unofficial copy of the annotated WV Code, provided as a convenience. It has NOT been edited for publication, and is not in any way official or authoritative.